Thursday, February 28, 2013

One of the
first things Hunter Harrison did when he became CEO of the CPR was to close
four hump yards, including the one in Winnipeg. Upon hearing
the news, I wondered: Why did he do that?At the annual Investor Conference, held Dec.
4-5 , 2012 in New York City, he offered this explanation. (From the official
transcript.)“And I get a lot of questions, probably more questions about this than
anything else, why close the humps and what does it do for you? Well, number
one, humps are effectively assembly lines.

“And to justify that [hump yards as assembly lines] you haven't a lot of
volume. The best analogy I can give you maybe is that if Henry Ford was going
to build 10 or 15 Model Ts a day, he would have never had an assembly line. But
when you get up to 300 or 400 cars a day, an assembly line was necessary.

“And there's a number that people will debate a little bit, but [you need to
have] somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,400 to 1,500 cars a day to justify a
hump. And we were down with all our humps in the neighborhood of 700,800 cars,
900 cars a day or less, and that's with some of the cars being humped more than
once.

“So this hump yard rationalization gives us a great deal of opportunity to
save a lot of cost, to expedite the movement of cars and reduce the dwell time
. . . . [The CPR will save] somewhere in the neighborhood of $40 million to $50
million in what I would call direct cost and much, much more in indirect cost
as a result of the closing of those yards.

“If you go back and look at those [hump] yards, they're mostly 1950s and
'60s vetted yards. So obviously, we've outgrown the technology there.

“Our book of business is extremely different than it was then. At that time
. . . we were still moving grain and 40-foot boxcars. And about 85%-plus of a
typical railroads business need to be classified or sorted in what we refer to
as blocks or classifications.

“Today, that's changed. If you look at CP today, with our book of business,
we have about, including Intermodal as unit train operation, about 72%, 73% of
our business does not need sorting or classifications. So once again, [we do] not
[have] the need for hump yards.”

Now Cameron's business has gone a step further; today (Feb. 23), North
American Railcar Corporation, a division of Pacific Western Rail Systems, has
announced it is selling Cameron's self-coupling air hoses through its new High Performance MagnaLock Brake Lines.The cost is $24.98 U.S. for ten pair.

The hoses, which Cameron developed for existing North American Railcar Corporation
rolling stock, also work on rolling stock and locomotives from other
manufacturers.

Currently, the hoses are
only available in HO Scale. But PWRS plans to bring them out in N scale,
too.

Already, PWRS has received orders for more than 2,000 pairs--it sounds like
a hit with modellers!

As for Cameron, he won't be selling them anymore. Which is a good thing,
since his small business (one person) couldn't keep up with demand. PWRS came
along at the right time, it seems--for Cameron and for everyone else who wants
the self-coupling air hoses.

A long time ago, cities and towns eagerly sought railways and their accompanying infrastructure--things like yards and shops.

Having the railway come through your town meant not only that it mattered, but that it might survive. Places bypassed by the tracks either failed to reach their full potential, or sometimes withered and died.

That was the case for Winnipeg, which exists because of the CPR.

As I wrote earlier, the railway was originally slated to cross the Red River north of Winnipeg at Selkirk--a far superior location, since it didn't flood.

The yard in 1968.

Winnipeg's civic leaders, realizing their community would become a backwater if the railway stayed on its more northerly course, persuaded the railway to change its course.

A promise to pay for the bridge that crossed the river helped, along with exempting the CPR from paying taxes on its railway buildings and grounds.

In 1881, the CPR accepted the offer. The line, which was headed toward Selkrik, was abruptly turned south toward Winnipeg.

Since that time, the city and the railway have had a love-hate relationship. For a long time it was mostly love, due to the economic benefits the railway brought.

More recently, it might not be hate, but it isn't fondness, as politicians and community leaders talk about ways to remove the "horrible scab," as one politician put it.

1981.

The latest call for the removal of the yard comes courtesy of the Arlington St. bridge. The bridge, built in 1909, has about reached the end of its useful life. Should it be replaced? Or should the yard be moved instead? That's the question being raised in a recent article in the Winnipeg Free Press.

It's not the first time the paper has dealt with this issue; last year it dealt with the issue in a series called Off the Rails. In the series, a number of ideas were suggested for ways to remove the yard.

Meanwhile, the CPR says it has no plans to move the yard out of the town, despite its decision to eliminate the hump in the yard (as part of the railway's cost-cutting moves).

In other words, the love-hate relationship will continue for some time . . . .

﻿﻿

Yard in 2009. Arlington St. bridge in the background.

Photos on this page from the Winnipeg Free Press, except the last one.

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Update to the update: It's back! Or, at least, I found another link to the 30-car Turbo Train video. Click hereto see it.Update: It seems that the person who made the video has removed it . . . too bad--it really was amazing!

Johnson, who also has been Senior Editor for Classic Toy Trains magazine, was inspired to model the modern CPR after travels to various regions
of western Canada. His layout, which is located in a 14 by 48 foot basement
room, includes city scenes in Vancouver, B.C., forested mountain terrain, and
deep river canyons.

The mainline run on Kent's dogbone-style layout is 200 feet; the track is
GarGraves flexible and sectional track and Ross Custom Switches; the scenery is made
of extruded Styrofoam; and trains are controlled with a Lionel Legacy/TMCC
command control system. Locomotives and rolling stock are painted, weathered,
and detailed for Canadian railways.

Kent's layout will be featured in the March 2013 issue of Classic Toy
Trains.

There are two videos of Kent's layout on the Classic Toy Trains website. Click here and hereto
view them.

(Photos from Kent's blog and the Classic Toy Trains website.)

In addition to his O scale layout, Kent also has a garden railroad--the Canadian
Pacific Joy Division. The 22 by 28 foot layout features a modern-era branch line
in western Canada. See videos of the layout here,hereand
here.

Saturday, February 16, 2013

Ever hear of steampunk? Me neither, until recently. What
about Steampunk trains? Same answer.

But then I was idly Googling the other day and came across a
fantastical version of a locomotive that made me shake my head in disbelief and
admiration . . . but before I get too far into the story, we first better talk about
steampunk.

Steampunk is a literary subgenre of science fiction that
typically features steam-powered machinery from the 19th century. Steampunk
works are often set in a post-apocalyptic future—a time when steam power has
regained mainstream use, or in a fantasy world that similarly employs steam
power.

(For an example, think of the recent Sherlock Holmes movies
by director Guy Ritchie, which are filled with large, noisy, steam-powered
machines, along with fantastic gadgets and inventions.)

But what about trains? That’s where Chris Walas comes in.

The Captain Nemo.

As John Brownlee noted in
Wired, “when steampunk crashes in head-on collision with model train
enthusiasm, you get Chris Walas’ rusty, corroded and incredible creations.”

And what incredible creations they are! Walas’ unique large scale locomotives
and rolling stock exist in a fictional world he calls RogueCounty. It's a place where, as Brownlee notes, “19th
century Americana
meets the super-science villains, protagonists and inventions of Victorian
literature.”

Armoured car.

For Walas, making steampunk-style model trains seems to be an
extension of his working life; he’s a special effects designer and make-up
artist in Hollywood, having worked on science fiction and adventure movies such
as The Fly and Raiders of the Lost Ark.

To make the locomotives, Walas uses various ready-to-find
materials, combining them with model railroad items.

The Tortoise.

For example, Captain Nemo's Seafood and
Saltwater Salvage Railroad—which features a submersible locomotive—was made using the boiler from a
Bachmann ten-wheeler, an Aristo-craft motor block, plastic Easter eggs, brass
anchor, drinking straw and a seashell, among other things. (Click here to see more photos and learn how he made the Nemo.)

Riding in style!

For the Jules Verne, he used a USA Trains GP30 chassis, PVC pipe and gutters. (Click here for photos and a how-to.) A passenger car was made from a USA Trains four-bay
hopper.

In addition to making steampunk-style trains, Walas also sometimes
just follows his whimsy, making fantastical creations for his garden railroad—like the Crimson Herring pirate train, the Count Trackula Hallowe'en train, and Captain Delmar's Steam Tug locomotive.

The Crimson Herring

The Captain Delmar.

Count Trackula.

Walas also makes more usual version of model railroad prototypes. But, as he points out, they end up being freelance interpretations because he "can't follow plans and need to make everything up as I go. That's just
the way I work."

A more conventional locomotive.

It should be noted that Walas himself doesn't call his creations steampunk; it's others that are making the connection.But whether or not that's the intention, he certainly has created some fantastic steampunk-like models.

About his modelling, Walas says: “I finally realized that
after years of fooling around in the hobby, what I really enjoy is adding some
creative whimsy to the crowd . . . The best I seem to be able to do is to make ‘something like’
what really existed; but I still have more fun designing and creating silly
stuff!”

Saturday, February 9, 2013

A number of years ago, Dwight built this module for the Renegades Model Railroad Club (now disbanded). It quickly became a highlight of the layout, due to its amazing trackwork.

The track is all Shinohara, with code 100 on the main tracks and code 70 in the
yards. Dwight heavily kitbashed the double crossover-slip switch; the other switches were modified for reliability.

The road is drywall mud with Poly Scale mixed in so
that chips or gouges won’t be white. The surface is painted and stained with
Poly Scale.

The green house and garage are scratchbuilt, and the red
house and garage are kitbashed. The signals and related items are all scratchbuilt, except for the switch
machines.

The handcar shed is a resin kit. The trees are made
from a honeysuckle bush and Woodland Scenics foliage.

The utility poles
are kitbashed from Atlas, and the fences are kitbashed, except for the green one
which is scratchbuilt.

Dwight's module was featured at the 1999 NMRA convention in St. Paul, MN, and has been shown in Canadian Railway Modeller and Railroad Model Craftsman.

These days the module is in storage at Dwight's house; today he spends most of his model railroad time on the Assiniboine Valley Railway, a 1.6" scale,7.5" gauge “layout” located on a
seven acre site at the home of Winnipegger Bill Taylor. On the AVR, Dwight is Vice-President in charge of "signals and control
of nuts running reds."

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

I didn't get any trains for Christmas, but I did get a gorilla--a Gorillapod, that is.

This versatile piece of equipment allows me to take photos almost anywhere on the layout, including scenes and views that would be impossible with a conventional tripod (as the photos attest).

Coupled with a digital camera (I use a simple Canon A590), the Gorillapod allows you to take photos almost anywhere--no need to even have to view the scene (although it helps).

In addition to standing tall, the Gorillapod can be squished down for a closer-to-the rails perspective. And although I haven't used it for video yet, it will permit a great bridge-type view of trains passing below the camera.

All the photos of trains on this page were taken using the Gorillapod. Click here to find out more about the Gorillapod.

Sunday, February 3, 2013

One of the features of this blog I like the best is Great Canadian Model Railroads--I enjoy showcasing the amazing model railroads made by others. To make it easier for people to find them, I've created the index below.

There are two indexes on the blog; one by topic, which I stopped updating in 2011 (once you fall behind, it's hard to catch up), and this one--by month and year beginning in 2012. I'll try to keep this one updated, and I hope it helps you find what you are looking for!

About Me

Click here for a topical index to the blog.
Click here for an index by year to the blog.
Click here for an index of Great Canadian Model Railroads.
Click here for an overview of the layout from the December, 2009 Railroad Model Craftsman.
Click here to view videos of the layout on YouTube.
Click here for a track plan.